Baseball is not and never has been our passion. So friends thought it was odd
that we as a family planned a weekend excursion to Cooperstown, N.Y. -- best
know as the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

"Cooperstown is Americana," I explained. It's an intact Colonial village set
on a glimmering lake in rural upstate New York. And on this particular weekend,
we would see the sweet pastoral life in living color at the Farmers' Museum, an
authentically recreated 1845 farm village with heritage breeds, a blacksmith,
printer, cheesemaker and other artisans who help create a bygone era. Read Story (PDF)

My husband and I paused to drink in the painterly autumn vision. But instead
of breaking out the picnic our hoteliers packed for us -- smoked salmon, roasted
pepper focaccia sandwiches, homemade brownies and a bottle of Chardonnay -- we
decided to save it to enjoy amid another type of splendor.

So we hightailed it back down the mountain and back to The Point, a private
sanctuary hidden deep in the woods on Upper Saranac Lake in New York's
Adirondack Park. Back to our retreat, we ambled down a short path to a lean-to
perched on the rocky promontory for which The Point is named. Read Story (PDF)

On a sun-soaked May morning last spring, a piercing two-minute siren brought
Israel to a halt, as it does every year on the Nation's Remembrance Day. People
everywhere stood in silence, heads bowed, to commemorate soldiers who have died
for the country, including those who perished during Israel's capture of the
Golan Heights from Syria in the Six Day War of 1967. Read Story (PDF)

Jacques Bon grinds the rickety quatre x quatre (four-by-four) to a
halt and peals with delight. "Look, his mouth is full of milk," he says,
pointing to the frothy-lipped calf that has ambled to the side of the car.

Bon is taking me on "safari" through Le Mas de Peint, his delightful gentrified
dude ranch in France's Camargue region. His Provencal-style cowboy garb and
swashbuckling gait have made him something of a legend 'round these parts of the
south of France. Read Story (PDF)

It's after 9 a.m. on a Tuesday, and shopkeepers brush brooms along rough
cobblestone streets around the main square. A shoeshine man waits for a pair of
dusty shoes to buff. An Indian woman, wrapped in a blue-fringed shawl, hobbles
toward the plaza, a tub of freshly cut flowers on her shoulder. Read Story (PDF)